Sole Signal Posted January 12, 2006 Posted January 12, 2006 Does anyone use this card on their laptop? I'm really in need of upgrading--right now I'm using the Audigy 2 NX USB soundcard, and the Directsound latency is crap. The ASIO4ALL driver doesn't help either. I was wondering if anyone here uses this card, or knows someone who uses it. I'm assuming the ASIO 2.0 support it has will be quite a significant difference from the Directsound 115 ms latency I'm experiencing now. And...what the heck I might as well ask what a decent pair of speakers will cost me. Is the Name-Your-Brand (Creative...etc) 5.1 computer speaker set at Wal-Mart a decent buy? I'm using a really old Labtec set that has 20 watts of power or somewhere around there. The Logitec (I think that's what it is) at Wal-Mart is about 70 bucks and carries 120 watts. Just curious as to what you guys use. I'm just starting to really get into this stuff, so that would explain my never-ending questions. Quote
zylance Posted January 12, 2006 Posted January 12, 2006 If you have the cash, go with this instead. http://www.zzounds.com/item--EMU1616 It's pricey, but a wonderful card. Direct sound is usually the worst thing to use for latency, and it ca cause problems with programs. The aforementioned card uses ASIO solely. As for speakers, since you are running a laptop, I would recommend a nice pair of headphones first. Check out this thread. Quote
sgx Posted January 12, 2006 Posted January 12, 2006 Are you gaming or making music? If you're making music I would suggest the Echo Indigo IO. It is quite nice. Quote
Legion303 Posted January 12, 2006 Posted January 12, 2006 Does anyone use this card on their laptop? I'm really in need of upgrading--right now I'm using the Audigy 2 NX USB soundcard, and the Directsound latency is crap. The ASIO4ALL driver doesn't help either.I was wondering if anyone here uses this card, or knows someone who uses it. I'm assuming the ASIO 2.0 support it has will be quite a significant difference from the Directsound 115 ms latency I'm experiencing now. I use it, but I don't do hardware sound, so I don't know much about that side of it. The ASIO panel will let me drop to 8ms of latency and still sound decent. Since I do everything in software, I cranked it up to about 50ms or so. I can work with it just fine, but it really is more of a gaming/movie device than one intended for hardcore music writing. It's up to you whether you want to spend the ~$80 or so to get decent usage out of this or spring 2X-3X as much for a dedicated music-making card. My biggest problem with it is the lack of a breakout box, and I don't believe Creative offers one yet, or ever plans to. As for your other question...don't skimp on speakers. I picked up some ridiculously cheap (like $20) 5.1 speakers from Newegg and I've regretted it since they day they arrived. You probably want to match the speakers to your other hardware in the sense of "high-end and high-end" or "cheap and cheap" if that makes sense. In other words, Don't spend all your cash on an $800 MOTU soundcard and then buy my previously mentioned $20 speakers unless you plan to upgrade them. The lowest-end components in your system will determine your overall sound, no matter how good the other stuff is. -steve Quote
Sole Signal Posted January 12, 2006 Author Posted January 12, 2006 Yeah, it would be completely for music-making. That EMU1616 card is a bit out of my budget right now--maybe sometime in the future. Legion, have you used the Line-In for recording? Basically what I'm looking for is a decent card that makes using FL less annoying with latency issues, and enables relatively good recording with FL (the ASIO support.) On Ebay a couple of ZS's are around 50 bucks currently, so I may try to pick it up at a price like that. About the speakers...what I'm looking for is a set that pushes enough bass and gives a crisper, cleaner, feel so I can get an idea of what it would sound like on other sets (car stereo, room stereo...). The Labtec set I have now just isn't able to give me a good sense of what the bass is actually doing, plus it just sounds weak. I'll look into the headphones, but too much headphone use wears on me after a while. Tuition costs + College books + EWQL + FL and a few plugins + both White Sox DVD's = not much money left to buy a better sound card and speakers Quote
Legion303 Posted January 14, 2006 Posted January 14, 2006 Legion, have you used the Line-In for recording? Yes, from mic+preamp and I noticed no problems. But again, I stress that latency isn't a factor for me and I don't remember how well it went (this was very simple recording, not multitracking or anything else that would allow me to notice latency issues). -steve Quote
Theowne Posted January 14, 2006 Posted January 14, 2006 How much can you spend on speakers? I'm guessing you're not thinking of studio monitors, but the speakers I used to have were the Logitech X-230s and they're fairly decent for really cheap speakers (they're like $50 bucks last time I checked). Quote
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